I just want to apologize. I have been so down lately with certain things going on in my personal life and this show/fandom really isn't helping matters. But I love writing these two - no matter what happens - and they make me happy. Thank you for putting up with me over the past few weeks as I go through this.

xxx

Chapter Six.

Beth's eyes fluttered open on day sixty-two to the sound of steady rain hitting the roof overhead and against the windowpanes. She laid there a moment and just listened to it, having always loved lying in her warm bed and listening to the rain. There was a walker out there last night, right beneath the bedroom window facing the side of the house and she had fallen asleep, listening to it groan, and she heard it now, still in the same spot. She wasn't going to go outside in the rain though to take care of it.

She laid there, curled beneath the blankets, trying to hear where Daryl was in the house but as always, he was quiet, never making that much noise. She knew that he was awake. Even though the rain was making everything grey outside, it was obviously past dawn and Daryl never slept past that.

With a mental kick in the butt, Beth finally got herself out of bed, smiling as she didn't even feel the need to cough or blow her nose. Her awful cold had finally seemed to pass and she felt almost as good as new. She suspected that cream of celery soup and Hershey chocolate bars and having a safe bed for the past few days had been the cure.

Coming out of the bedroom, stepping into the kitchen, she felt a cool breeze and saw Daryl standing at the open back door, leaning in the frame, smoking a cigarette and watching the rain fall. She approached him as quietly as she could – which was pretty easy in her thick wool socks – but she knew he heard her anyway. No one had better hearing than Daryl.

She came to stand beside him in the doorway and he looked over to her, dropping his cigarette down immediately to the top patio step. She knew he didn't really like to smoke around her even if she had already told him that he could if he wanted to. They had bigger things to worry about other than secondhand smoke but he didn't seem to agree with her on that.

She didn't comment on it now as they stood side by side, watching the rain fall and fill the collection of buckets she and Daryl had gathered over the past few days. They had set them all out on the patio in hopes that it would rain and give them more drinking water and water for their plants and the plan had finally paid off. Daryl had mentioned more than once that he wanted to go into the woods and see if there was a water spot close by but he hadn't wanted to go too far with her being back here, sick in bed. Maybe now, they could both go and try to find one.

"Got up early this mornin'," Daryl broke the silence between them. "Been workin' on it since the rain started up. Wanna show you."

Beth looked up at him, the unasked question furrowing at her eyebrows, and his lips twitched as if he wanted to smile and he shifted on his feet as if nervous. Without a word, he stepped back from the frame and Beth stepped back, too, so the back door could be closed once more and locked. He led down the small front hallway and she followed him into the house's second bathroom.

"Figured this tub would be better than that huge one in the other bathroom," Daryl said and saw that grey light was pushing through the little window above the toilet and once she saw what Daryl had brought in here to show her, she couldn't help but gasp.

She stared at the water in the tub, hardly able to believe it.

"Ain't a lot," Daryl then shrugged as if what he had done was absolutely no big deal. "Prob'ly won't even come up to cover your knees but didn' wanna waste that much water on this. And it ain't warm either. Tried warming the buckets by the fire so it ain't freezin' but it ain't pipin' hot neither-"

He was talking but all Beth could do was stare at the water in the tub and before he could even finish what he was saying, Beth spun towards him and standing on her toes, she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him as tightly as she could. He stopped in mid-sentence and stood there for a moment as if he had no idea what to do. She knew he was used to her hugging him. She had done it more than once by now but she also knew that he had absolutely no idea how to react when she did.

And then lightly, she felt his hands coming to a rest on her hips. And Beth squeezed her arms around his neck. She knew he never knew what to do with his hands when she hugged him but his hands on her hips may have been light but they still felt heavy to her. Heavy and warm and she closed her eyes for a moment. Sometimes, they went a couple of days without touching and it made Beth ache for just a little bit of contact because that's who she was. She craved human touch and she admitted she wasn't good on her own and she knew Daryl wasn't like that at all so she always tried to respect his space even though sometimes, she just wanted to grab him and hug him and feel his hands – no matter how light – on her in return.

"Thank you so much, Daryl," she murmured to him softly.

"'s nothin'," he then mumbled and as she finally pulled herself back, she could see the tips of his ears turning red.

She had cut his hair a couple of days before but she hadn't cut much. Just a trim really. Longer hair seemed to suit Daryl quite nicely and honestly, only admitted to herself to never be spoken out loud to anyone, he looked good with longer hair. Real good.

"You get yourself washed up," he said and began edging towards the door as if he had to get out of the small bathroom right then and there and before Beth could say another word to him, he was gone, closing the door behind him.

Beth looked at the door for a moment and then looked down to the water in the tub and a smile she couldn't stop burst across her face.

She was quick to shed her clothes and opening the cabinets beneath the sink, she found a fluffy white towel that smelled a bit musky – but who cared about that – and a washcloth. And then, tugging the rubber band from her hair, she was quick to step into the tub. Daryl was right. The water wasn't warm but she could tell that he had done his best to warm it – the water now a little below lukewarm as it splashed around her.

She found shampoo and conditioner bottles in the corner of the tub and a bar of soap dried to the dish on the wall. She sank herself down on her back and was able to get her hair wet. She then poured a dollop of the shampoo – vanilla scent – into her palm. She wasn't sure how long she scrubbed at her hair but she knew it was longer than just a few minutes. There was really no need to hurry. The water was already cool and it was still raining – she hearing it on the roof above her head – and there wasn't too much to do at the moment with the weather the way it was right now. She could take all of the time in the world, if she wanted.

And she definitely wanted.

Slipping down to her back again, she washed the shampoo from her hair and the soapy suds filled the water before she gave her hair the same treatment with the conditioner. Her hair was getting so long but she couldn't imagine cutting it. She knew that she probably should have. It probably would have been safer so it wouldn't be able to snag onto a tree branch as they ran or grabbed by a walker. But she had always loved her hair. It had always been one of her favorite things about herself and she just couldn't imagine herself with a short bob like Maggie had.

Once her hair was free of dirt and grease and tangles, Beth then took her time, soaping up the wash cloth and then soaping her body up. The bar of soap was a lavender scent and she closed her eyes, smiling to herself, as she ran the cloth all over herself and even sitting in less than four inches of cool water, just being clean made her feel better than she had for a long time. There was even a razor in the corner of the tub and she couldn't help but shave her legs and under her arms.

By the time she finally stepped from the tub, the rain was pounding now and she heard a rumble of thunder and she could just imagine how much water was in all of their buckets outside now. She wrapped the towel around her body and finding a comb in one of the drawers, she looked at her reflection in the mirror above the sink and began combing her hair out. It was amazing what a little bit of soap could do for a person.

Gathering her clothes, she finally left the bathroom and stepped back into the kitchen, immediately finding Daryl on the couch in the family room, sharpening their knives as he tended to do every couple of days.

"Bath's all yours," she smiled.

Daryl lifted his eyes to her and then quickly lowered them to the knife again and she realized that she was only wearing a towel. She felt a blush creep up her neck but she didn't scurry away from him. She was covered. It wasn't as if she was naked in front of him and besides, they had been together for the past sixty-two days. They had heard one another pee, for goodness sake.

"Ain't takin' a bath," he shook his head, not looking up again. "Got the water for you."

Beth knew he wasn't going to take a bath but she hadn't seen the harm in innocently suggesting it. The man seemed perfectly fine with a thin layer of sweat and dirt on his skin. And he certainly looked good with it, too. She nearly shook her head at herself. She wasn't too sure where these thoughts of Daryl were coming from all of a sudden.

"Well, I really think you should take one," she said and that was all she said before she turned and headed back into the bedroom that had become hers and closed the door with a quiet click behind her.

The rain was still pounding and she couldn't hear the walker growling outside but she knew it was still there. No reason for it not to be.

With more scavenging through the other houses, Daryl had been able to find things that she had looked to as a Godsend and still did. Her old jeans had been so worn and torn and dirty, they had practically been able to stand up on their own and when he had come back with another pair for her – a pair that actually fit her – she had gasped and hugged him as if it was Christmas morning.

They both had extra pairs of underwear, too, and she pulled on a – what she assumed was – clean pair and then tugged on the new – new to her – pair of jeans. Her bra had definitely seen better days and she knew that she could probably just go without one but she didn't know if she wanted to not be wearing one around Daryl. Not that she was uncomfortable with him but sometimes, with her new thoughts towards him, she would get a little bit excited and she didn't want him to be able to see that through her shirt.

She then pulled on her wool socks, pulling them up her legs, over her jeans, and slipped on a purple plaid flannel shirt Daryl had found for her. After buttoning the buttons, she left the bedroom, intending on sitting down in front of the fire and drying her hair. When she came out again, Daryl was no longer sitting on the couch and she stood there for a moment, listening for him.

She burst into a smile when she heard splashing of water in the tub and looking down the hall, she saw that the bathroom door was closed.

xxx

They ate their breakfast on the floor in front of the fire, both smelling of vanilla and lavender, the warm flames slowly drying their wet hair, and they shared the granola and spoons of the whipped peanut butter. The rain hadn't let up and Beth couldn't help but think of their other family, still out there somewhere. Here she sat, fresh from an actual bath with food and a fire and a roof over her head and she didn't know where any of them were or if they had been so lucky. Deep down, she couldn't help but doubt it though. Despite her anger at him in the first few days, she knew she was lucky to have gotten out of the prison with Daryl. She meant what she had told him. He was made for how things were now. If any of them could survive, it was the man sitting next to her.

Last man standing.

She swallowed the mouthful of peanut butter in her mouth and looked to Daryl. "Do you think the others have been able to find a place like this?"

Daryl was quiet for a moment, chewing slowly on a mouth of granola. He then shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted and she was grateful to him for always being honest with her. Daryl never sugar-coated things to her and she wondered if he had any idea how important that was to her; that he didn't treat her like a little kid like everyone else had.

"We were lucky to have found this place," he added. "Built up in the middle of nowhere like this."

Beth nodded in agreement. "I bet they were going to build more like it around here before…"

It was his turn to nod. "Fence all 'round us is luck, too. Couldn' find a place like this after the farm. But Rick wasn' really lookin' for a place like this neither. He wanted somethin' better than this."

"This place is perfect," Beth interrupted gently because she knew what Daryl was doing.

After sixty-two days, she knew him pretty damn well – or she liked to think that she did – and she knew that Daryl was telling himself that maybe this wasn't a good enough place. Maybe they should keep moving until they found something else. Something bigger and more protected but they didn't need either of those things. This house was the perfect size for just the two of them and like he said, it had a fence all around them. It might not have been a tall chain-link. It might have just been a wood fence that came up to their stomachs but it was still a fence and so far, it had done exactly what they needed it to do. When Beth went to sleep at night, she didn't feel scared.

They may not have had a lot but they had enough.

"The others ain't stupid," Daryl then said and he turned his head to look at her. "They know how to find a place and make it safe."

Beth nodded in agreement but she couldn't help but wonder. She hoped that everyone in their family was safe and out of this rain. Or maybe, they had all walked far enough away where they weren't all in the same storm right now. Beth admitted that she really hadn't thought of that. She had just assumed that they were all still in Georgia, in the same area, walking circles around one another, never able to find each other but always looking. And though it was apparent that no one was looking for her, surely, they would all be looking for Daryl. They'd be stupid if they just gave up on him.

"I really miss macaroni and cheese," she then said suddenly and completely random.

After a moment, she heard a soft chuckle come from Daryl and she smiled.

"What do you miss?" She asked.

He closed the flap of the granola box and set it aside. They had put rations on everything they ate and each were allowed two handfuls of granola every morning for breakfast. But even with rationing, Beth knew the granola just had a couple of more days until that was gone, too. Daryl just had a few more houses to go through in the subdivision and if the weather was better tomorrow, when he went, Beth would finally go with him.

"Ice cream," Daryl finally answered.

"Yeah?" Beth smiled at that.

He nodded, his own lips twitching a little. "Yeah. Used to have ice cream just 'bout every day if I was able to. Wherever me and Merle wound up, I'd make sure I could get some."

She smiled a bit wider at that, very much liking the image of Daryl eating ice cream cones. "What was your favorite kind?" She asked and she found herself leaning into him a little bit but he didn't seem to notice because Beth had a feeling that if he did, he'd be scooting away from her to keep the same amount of distance between them. And Beth wasn't even going to wonder why she was leaning into him.

After his bath, he had put on some fresh clothes, too. A pair of jeans he had found for himself and a black hooded sweatshirt. She wouldn't think Daryl would ever wear something like that but they were beggars and they couldn't be choosers and it looked warm. And just like everything else with Daryl, Beth was beginning to realize, he looked good wearing it.

"Loved Choco-tacos," he said and his lips were twitching even more. He definitely wanted to smile and she wished he just would. The couple of times she had seen him actually do it, his entire face relaxed and he looked so handsome. "Mint Oreo blizzards from DQ. Those chocolate chip cookie sandwiches with the vanilla ice cream-"

"Stop," Beth then said, laughing a little, and she saw that he was finally smiling. A little one but a smile nonetheless. "Stop. You're making my mouth water."

She leaned into her book bag, nearby and always packed and ready to go, and pulled out one of the candy bars stashed from within. They were each allowed one tiny square a day and she took the bar, pulling back the foil wrapping and holding it for him to take.

"This is all I can offer you right now," she then said with a softened smile.

And Daryl looked down at the chocolate bar for a second before his eyes lifted to look into hers. Beth felt a tightening in her stomach and she wasn't sure where it came from because it wasn't as if Daryl had never looked at her before. She did her best to swallow, her throat suddenly feeling incredibly dry for some reason.

Daryl reached and broke off a square for himself and his eyes went back to hers, looking into her eyes and nothing else and Beth wondered why the fire was making the room feel like a furnace room all of sudden.

"'s more than enough," he said in that low gravelly voice of his and despite the heat she felt now breaking out in little beads across her skin, she felt like shivering.

xxx

It rained the rest of the day. All day and without much of a break. She didn't mind the rain though and not just because it helped mask their living smells to walkers. She liked being dry and safe inside of a house and she felt the sounds of raining hitting the roof to almost be relaxing in its own way. She just wished it was warmer out now so she and Daryl could have already planted their garden.

Instead, though, she was in the living room where there was a window that faced east and on the windowsill, she had their plants lined up, which she watered now. She couldn't wait until it was warm enough and she and Daryl could start working on getting their garden set up and they would have green beans, tomatoes and squash growing.

A part of her wasn't too sure why she was planning on doing something that probably wouldn't happen for at least a couple of months. She knew Daryl said they would stay here until she felt better but now that she was better, it didn't seem like either of them were in too big of a hurry to leave this place. She was making plans for spring – of a garden and how else they could make their life a little bit easier here when the weather was warmer – and she knew that Daryl was probably making plans himself like that.

It wasn't as if she was giving up on finding their family. Not at all. But she had been thinking lately. Maybe the reason none of them could find one another was because they were constantly moving. Maybe if she and Daryl just stayed in one place for a while, someone else from their family would stumble upon them then. Beth wasn't going to lose hope. They'd find one another one of these days. She knew it. Just right now, she and Daryl needed to rest. They had been moving without stopping for the past sixty-two days and they were exhausted. Daryl especially.

She hummed a soft song to herself as she watered the vegetable cans with water from one of the plastic bottles they had and when she got to the cans with the tomato seeds at the end of the sill, she stopped and after another moment of staring, she gasped. She quickly and carefully grabbed the three cans and hurried from the living room, down the hall, coming up on the family room where Daryl sat on the floor, going over the supplies he had gathered for them from the houses over the past few days. All things considering, the haul was impressive.

Without a word, Beth dropped down to her knees in front of him and Daryl lifted his eyes to look at her, curiously. Still, not speaking, she set the three cans down so he could see for himself. And he knew within a second why she had brought these to show him. He stared at the small green little buds successfully pushing through the soil and he smirked a little, shaking his head as if amazed. And when he lifted his head again to look at him, Beth burst into her own smile.

"They're really growing," she then said, sounding breathless to her ears.

Daryl looked at her for a moment and then shook his head slightly as if he still couldn't quite believe it that the seeds had actually taken. "I think we're gonna be a'right here for a while."

And Beth's smile somehow grew in size and without another word, she leaned over the plants and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly for the second time that day. And this time, after a long moment, she felt Daryl's hand – warm and heavy and light all at the same time as it always was – on her back, between her shoulder blades. Beth smiled to herself and closed her eyes, pressing her nose to his sweatshirt and wanting to hold onto him for as long as she could.

xxx

Thank you very much for reading and please take a moment to review!